Absolution
by Malanna
Summary: Support Stacie Auction Winner Ficlet. A 'What Should Have Been' Eric and Sookie moment set during All Together Dead book 7 . Contains MATURE content.


**Title**: Absolution

**Author**: Malanna

**Support Stacie Auction Winner**: Ysar

**Ficlet Challenge**: Write a 'what should have been' Eric/Sookie moment, including lemony Viking goodness.

**Moment Chosen**: During All Together Dead (book 7) immediately following the soda can bomb incident. This is how it should have happened. The first lines (italicized) are from the book. As a reminder, Sookie refers to the vampire bomb squad member as 'Boom'.

**Bidder's Preferred Musical Inspiration**: A good metal/power ballad, preferably by a Scandinavian band (how appropriate!)

**Song Chosen**: "The Misery" by Sonata Arctica, a Finnish band. Link to the song in my profile.

**Special Message from Ysar:**

_This donation was made in memory of __Liz McCauley. She saved me from myself about 15 years ago right before she lost her battle with __breast cancer. I owe her one._

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_Boom turned, slowed by the suit, and gestured to Quinn to open the stairwell door again. Quinn did, and down the stairs the vampire went: slowly, carefully, evenly. Maybe he smiled all the way. But he didn't blow up, because I didn't hear a noise, and I've got to say we all stood frozen in our places for a good long while._

"_Oh," I said, "Oh." This was not brilliant, but I was in about a thousand emotional pieces. My knees gave way._

_Quinn pounced on me and wrapped his arms around me. "You idiot," he said. "You idiot." It was like he was saying, "Thank you, God." I was smothered in weretiger..._

... and I should have felt comforted in that moment, but despite being in the arms of my current boyfriend, I found myself peeking over his shoulder, looking for someone else.

Was it the strange power of this new bond making me want nothing more in this moment than to see those crystal blue eyes? Were my feelings my own, or were they some magical manipulation of my emotions? I hated not knowing... not understanding.

My breaths were coming out rapid and shallow - the magnitude of what I'd just done spilling over me like a tidal wave, threatening to drag me under. Combined with this sudden, overwhelming need for Eric, my entire body began to tremble. My senses were on overload, and there was a churning in the pit of my stomach that was getting worse every second. The calm I'd felt when Eric arrived on the scene was rapidly fading.

Eric was walking away.

The panic that struck me then was beyond any I'd ever felt – worse than when I was holding that bomb, or when I'd been staked, shot at, poisoned, kidnapped, nearly raped... nothing compared to the choking terror that now had me in its grasp.

"Eric!" I screamed, shoving Quinn aside and scrambling to my feet.

He had just reached the stairwell doors and immediately stopped, tensing up at my cry. I tore down that hallway at speeds I never thought myself capable of, probably enhanced by his fresh blood coursing through my body. Eric hadn't turned around, standing stock still and almost rigid as I reached him, throwing my arms around his waist, hugging my entire body tightly against his back.

I didn't stop to think about what I was doing... I couldn't. I only knew I needed him, and that need overtook me in a way that nothing else mattered. My questions, my concerns – they were all swept from my mind like no more than dust from a shelf, leaving a clear path straight from my heart to him. All the things I'd fought so hard to bury from our brief time together when he was cursed came bubbling to the surface. They would no longer be denied.

"Eric... please..." I whispered through near sobs.

Slowly I felt the tension begin to release from his body, and new waves of emotion began to crest over me. Feelings of warmth... of desire... of resignation. They were humming through me, flowing into me from a place outside myself. They were coming from Eric.

It was then that he finally turned to face me, and I felt my knees go weak from the intensity of his gaze boring into mine. His eyes were like cold blue fire... burning with a silent and clear demand...

_'Yield to me.'_

The meaning of that look was unmistakable, and not just referring to my body. He wanted me... all of me... and would no longer accept any less.

There was only one thing I could say that would finally stop this hunger... this ache. It would put an end to all the cat and mouse games, all the dancing around each other. I'd brushed this man... this beautiful creature... aside for so long, and so unfairly. He would put me first, giving me everything I'd ever claimed to want... I knew this. He'd proven it so many times, if I'd just bothered to pay attention. There was only one thing he wanted from me... I had but to say it.

"Eric..." I breathed, held firm by his gaze. "I am yours."

I was swept up into his arms, like Rhett with Scarlett, before I realized he'd moved. Eric's eyes did not leave mine for an instant, his gaze now blazing with lust and passion, reinforced by immense surges of desire coming across the bond. I felt myself drowning in him, releasing all the things that had inhibited me, no longer remembering why I'd held myself from him all this time.

He carried me swiftly to his room, leaving a stunned Quinn behind. I'd feel bad for hurting him later, but I couldn't deny this any longer. I clung to Eric's body as he cradled me to him, deftly opening the door with one hand while still supporting me with the other. After kicking the door closed behind us, his eyes held mine a moment longer.

"I have waited patiently for you, lover," he rasped in that husky voice. "Now I shall have you over and over, fulfilling every vision of us that has haunted my thoughts for far too long."

He did not give me a chance to respond, not that I could have formed coherent words if he had. Eric's lips crashed into mine, possessing my mouth with abandon. I moaned softly into his kiss, tightening my grip around his neck, my fingers playing through his golden hair. His tongue ran insistently along my bottom lip, and I parted my mouth against his, hungry to taste him. There was no fight for dominance; I yielded wantonly to his tongue, intoxicated by its every caress.

As our kiss continued to deepen, to become more frenzied in our need for each other, I felt Eric sinking down to his knees still holding me. Lips, tongues, teeth and fangs desperately sought each other as clothing was rapidly torn, vehement in our need for the feel of warm flesh against cold, soft skin against taught muscle.

As I slid from his grasp to kneel with him, his fingers tangled into my hair, cradling my head to him. Unable and unwilling to tear ourselves from the most passionate and unabashedly hungry kiss I had ever known, sending every nerve ending in my body screaming with ecstasy, I drowned in the raging torrent we had finally released.

A sea of ripped clothing lay pooled around us as we knelt together, reverent yet fervent in our worshiping of each other and of the bond that had not tied us, but freed us from the constraints of our own making. Hands began to slide along flesh, exploring and reclaiming what had once, and now again, belonged to their touch. Growls mixed with desperate moans, every new sensation too much, yet never enough.

Kisses were finally forced apart as I felt his long, cool fingers slipping along my folds, my head uncontrollably thrown back, his name coming in gasps from my lips. My neck, now exposed and inviting, was quickly found by his mouth, and he delivered a rush of kisses and nips up and down its length while his free hand gripped from behind, holding me firm to his every desire. Eric had taken complete possession of my body and senses, bending my responses to his will, playing me with lithe fingers and deep groans against my skin.

He stoked the rising heat in my core with thumbed circles against my clit and curling, deep thrusts that sent shockwaves through my trembling form, kept upright only by the tight grasp he held at the back of my neck. My nails raked down his chest as my hands became desperate to feel his desire, each running along the muscular V cut leading to that which could sate my desire.

My fingertips wrapped in a steepled circle about the base of his cock, each insistent to touch him, to stroke up his length and catch the moisture at the tip, delighting in the hungry roar elicited from their massage. Furious waves of lust stabbed through the bond, his need to own me with his body becoming uncontrollable, as was my desperation for the release only he could grant.

I found myself being swept off the ground and flung wildly toward the bed like a rag doll, the top half of my body lying face down into the mattress while my legs hung off the edge. He hovered over my back, his arms remaining locked around my waist, and his pelvis pressed firmly against my ass.

His lips traced up my neck to my ear, nipping at the lobe before breathing in a whispery growl, "Mine."

Eric plunged into me, mercilessly claiming his ownership, pulling back with his hold on my waist to grind himself deeper than I ever thought possible. The screams and cries of ecstasy that ripped from my throat were met by his carnal howls, growing louder and more crazed with every thrust. He pillaged my trembling body without restraint, pouring out every ounce of himself that he'd held in check... all the lust... the passion... and even... love.

We gave into it, the undeniable truth of all we had come to be to the other, all we'd tried so hard to hide. Everything was laid bare through the bond and by the rapture of our love making. Together we climbed toward final absolution, drowning in each other, yet finally surfacing from the suffocating prison of our own creation.

Eric's fangs found the back of my shoulder as mutual release finally came, washing away with it the last remnants of the emotional wounds we'd inflicted upon each other and ourselves. He drank deeply, and I shuddered with wave after wave of orgasm, clenching around him inside me, savoring the warm rush of his own climax.

"Sookie... my Dear One... my Bonded..." he whispered as he collapsed to the bed, pulling me into his embrace.

Tears pricked at my eyes as I curled into him, feeling protected in a way I never knew possible. Protected... and free.

"I love you, Eric," my small voice cracked.

He snuggled me deeper into his arms, gently stroking my hair, softly shushing me. "Do not cry, lover. There is no more need for tears."

And I knew he was right... my life would be forever changed by this Viking vampire... and in ways I thought only existed in little girl dreams.

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A/N: This ficlet was written as part of the Support Stacie auction, in which fanfic authors offered stories written to the winning bidder's personal specifications. The auction raised over $25,000 in total to help support a fellow author battling cancer. To learn more about this cause and about future auctions, please visit:

supportstacie (DOT) net

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or stories from the Southern Vampire Mysteries – they belong solely to Charlaine Harris. No infringement is intended.


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